Question 116801: consider the function: f(x)= x^2+6x-2. Find h, the x-coordinate of the vertex of this parabola. Answer by bucky(2189) (Show Source):
You can put this solution on YOUR website! Given:
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This function is of the standard form:
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Recall the quadratic formula that says for a function of this form the solutions for x are:
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The first term on the right side (that is will give you the value for x
at the vertex of the parabolic graph for
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Comparing the given function with the standard form you can see that a in the standard form
[the multiplier of the ] is +1 in the given problem, and b in the standard form
[the multiplier of the ] is +6 in the given problem, and c (which we don't need) in
the standard function is -2 in the given problem.
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All you now have to do to solve this problem is plug the values for a and b into
and you get that the value of x at the vertex is:
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So the answer to your problem is h = -3
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Here's the graph of the equation (shown in red) to help you validate
the answer. The green line is a vertical line through the vertex. It shows you that the
vertex has -3 as the value for its x:
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Hope this helps you to understand the problem a little better.
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